What do you allow your students to do solo?
 

Hi all, a question for all you ppl instructors

Does your school allow students to practice stalling,steep turns,PFL's,glide circuits, flapless circuits solo?

My school doesn't at all, and I am sure when I was learning we did it. Any thoughts? I think it should be allowed, otherwise their skills will errode and it will help their confidence levels

What on Earth do your students do on solo sorties if they are not allowed to practice those items they have been taught and demonstrated competence in? Solo consolidation is part of the syllabus.

I know...it is a bug bear of mine that I have raised. They do nav and just the normal circuits solo....

I am a helicopter guy, so my approach might be different..but they are approved to fly all maneuvers they have been taught up til then (except for emergency procedures)..

So in the helicopter world, it would be:
-Normal take-off, sim. max performance take-off, vertical departure
-Pattern flight
-Normal approach to land, landing to the ground, steep approach.

Cross-country flying with off-airfield landings is a different subject and will be solo-ed at a later stage of their training.

When I was a stude (a long time ago now!) we even did solo spinning!

When they finally get their licence they should ideally be practicing these manouvres regularly, if they are not allowed to do this when they have an instructor at hand to debrief if needed how can they have the confidence to practice afterwards?

I allow them to do nearly all exercises on solo's, depending on the weather. A few would have to be done at a higher altitude when solo then with an instructor

as a helicopter instructor
from what i remember when i was a Student
1- 1st solo for me was Hover + Spot Turn
2- Circuit inside the airfield to the runway ,, and the ATC knows that i am a Student
3- Cross country
then Flight Test
now the Question is ,,, do Student Practice PFL ? Vortex Rings in the helicopter in SOLO flights ?
Answer is HELL NO
Student is not allow to Practice any of these maneuvers
Unless with his instructor ,,
instructor shows the student ,, in case it really happens and how to recover ,,
when student get his License and want to hire his own helicopter and kill him self ,,
its up to him ,, but never try this ,,
now days ,, most of flying School ,, dont do PFL and touch the ground ,, because chance of crashing in Training is more then REAL engine Failure
this is why we have Simulator
Fly safe and dont Kill yourself

beside if i was wrong
can anyone show me the rules and regulations that tell us that student must practice emergencies ?
i will be very grateful

The PPL(A) syllabus includes 10 hours of solo flying, this is to allow the student to gain experience of operating on their own where they will develop their confidence and decision making skills. At the circuit stage a student should practice Normal, Flapless and Glide circuits when they have been taught; typically, two hours solo of mixed circuits. 5 hours of solo navigation is mandated in the syllabus leaving a further 3 hours of solo where the student should practice GH including Stalls, Steep Turns and PFLs as briefed by the instructor.

If the student is just briefed to fly around aimlessly for 3 hours and not allowed to consolidate flapless and glide circuits their school is failing in its task.

Nope. I use common sense, good practice, and a desire to ensure my studes are competent for that one....

UAV ...... Good question, and hobbit sums it up with common sense and good practice, I would add duty of care, because if your student has an accident you are going prove in court that there was a duty of care in place.

Personally, I would say most exercises should be practised with the exception of the following:

1. Stalling, from the point of lookout in a high nose attitude and also accidental spin.
2. EFATO.
3. Steep turns, also due to lookout.
4. Sidesliipng (if taught), again in case of an accidental spin.
5. Instrument flying.

I could undestand if it was a club policy was no solo PFLs, because I have known a few instructors to mess up PFLs and EFATOs usually due to carb heat or accelorator pump issues.

All aspects of take off and landings need to be practised solo, flappless, glide, full flap. Although probably would not be unreasonable for a club to make full flap landing to full stop.

Again on the subject of duty of care, for any solo you need to ensure that the student has been trained in all the emergencies for the particular solo exercise. This does not always happen. For example I came across a student who was being sent on solo departures and rejoins, having not been taught PFL and all the inflight emergency drills. Likewise I have come accross students who have been flying solo have not been trained in all the emergency drills. As a consequence I have always had a supplinentary sheet they sign for each emergency, such as engine fire ground, engine air, electrical fire, electrical failure, engine restart.

I have to say I think some training organisations are becoming a bit cautious. When I started my civilian training a while ago, we used to do full single engine shutdowns (dual), raise the nose to the point that the prop stopped. engine restart without the starter motor, followed by a dive to windmill the prop to the point the engine starts. I was required to demonstrate this on my GFT, but it may have something gaining SLMG as well as PPL (A) priviledges. Can anyone confirm that? Also I did my night solo circuits for my night rating on a runway with compacted snow, again I'm not sure that in the UK thesedays you would send someone solo in these conditions.

UAV.. You might want to check additionally in the aircraft insurance documents to see if there are any restrictions in relation to student solos and if non compliance with the pilots order book invalidates the insurence. Finally, you might want to speak with your FIE, see what his/her take on this and then take it up with your CFI.

ALL PPL students should practise stalling, steep turns and PFLs solo.

If they are taught how to L00KOUT correctly in the first place, there is no real issue.

As for that headshrinker horse$hit about insurance and 'duty of care' - just brief them properly.

Bolleaux! All normal touch-and-go landings should use full flap - and students must also practise go-arounds in that configuration from a safe height.

Whatever is the world coming to, if such utter nonsense as that in Homsap's post is commonplace!

Which means you have a responsibility to do the job properly and not opt out behind your yellow blanket.

Well said Beags!

Firstly Beagle and Whopity where is it written that you agree that all landings should be full flap, a C150 or C172, why would you need forty degrees of flap at say EGNX, that might just just delay vacation of the active runway.

Regarding solo stalling, I say with forty degrees of flap, I would not be happy with allowing that, unless the student was well trained in spin recovery.

I appeciate you might think 'duty of care' is wrong, but in the event I need to demonstrate to a judge who has no knowledge of flying, it is important to demonstrate that there was a duty of care, hence I will not loose my home. I say that as someone who has rights in the High Court as an advocate.

it would be interesting to know what the RAF CFS rules are on solo flight on the Grob 115 during initial trainingg.

Fly the aeroplane, not the aerodrome.

The student should be taught to recover at the first indication of stall warning in that configuration, rather than waiting for the stall identification and fully developed stage. They should certainly practise stalling in the approach configuration solo, recovering at the incipient stage.

I don't know what the RAF policy is with the plastic pig, but certainly all UAS Bulldog students were required to practise stalling, steep turns and PFLs solo. Plus aerobatics once they'd been taught them and had passed their spin/aeros check. Just as I did back in Chipmunk days - and during my original PPL course on the Cessna 150 (but not the aeros!).

I would agree with Whopity and Beagle.
As far as No, not ALL landings need to be full flap - especially with an electric flap aircraft you need to know how to land it if the flaps fail at any point - but you should know how to land full flap because that is needed for short field, and when qualified the pilot may fly somewhere this is needed so he MUST be up to solo standard on it - if not then where does your duty of care lie when he is qualified and crashes landing at a short farm strip??

In response, selection of flap depends on the situation, and 40 degrees of flap on a C150, C172, C206, I would say is there for short field performance only. I would say full flap, might not be required at EGNX, and by way of example, I may be wrong but the Chipmunk and Bulldog full flap was between 20 and 30 degrees, that is very different to 40 degrees of flap.

In relation to solo stall practice in a bulldog, I agree, despite of the vices of the Bulldog and the B121 in the spin, the RAF Cadet Pilot had the option of a parachute.

Interesting that you are saying that students may practice stalling when solo.
As a PPL with about 100 hours, I pre-flighted a club 150 one day and couldn't get a peep out of the stall warner, so when at a safe height, I tried a deliberate stall; still nothing.
When I landed, I recorded the stall warner problem in the tech log. A couple of weeks later, this aircraft spun in with 2 fatalities due to CO leakage.
The club owner asked to see me next time I flew. When I explained about the stall warner (according to the tech log, nothing had been done to fix it when the aircraft crashed) he went spare ranting that I shouldn't do a deliberate stall unless I had an instructor on board!!

that is hardly a decent response - my point was that even if you do not use it regularly the student still has to be solo standard with it for when (s)he DOES need to use it, your response does not address that at all!

Foxmoth... Clearly the student needs to be competant with all flap settings and go around in all flap configurations during traing, but the C150 could be a hand full for an inexperienced student with full flap on go around. Inadvetent full flap selection was much easier that say the C152 and C172, hence the C152 only had 30 degrees of flap.

Chevron, I can not see why a qualified PPL should not practice stalls solo, on the other hand it's not a bad idea to have an instructor on board, so you can get some feeback on your technique. For example I have often flown with qualified PPLs who claim they were taught to 'pick up dropped wing with opposite rudder', when infact they should have been taught to 'use opposite rudder to prevent further wing drop'. I would imagine if you entered a u/s stall warner in the tech log it was a defer defect on the Pilot's Order Book. From memory the RAF choose not to fit stall warners on the Bulldog. But Chevron, can you elaborate on the the aircraft spinning and the CO leakage or let me have the regn. I'm interested, because the C150 and C152 are fairly docile in the spin, although with full pro spin aileron, it gets a bit more exciting.

On this topic, it was previously rumoured on PPRUNE that HRH Prince William never actually went solo during his RAF training on the Grob 115 and Tucano, can anyone clarify this? Likewise does he ever fly the air ambulance without another pilot?